I can attest to Deckman's practice of adopting a "touchstone." He asked to poke through my Dad's guitar case looking for such an object after Dad died. The guitar case was of course the perfect place to locate such an object, since music was so important to Dad and that's how he made so many friends. (I don't remember what you picked up, but I did the same thing ahead of you--I went straight for the tuning fork that I'd always loved to play with as a child).

SRS